


what you had and what you lost

by genericghouligan



Series: The Risky Fixins [4]
Category: Buzzfeed Unsolved (Web Series)
Genre: Band Fic, Dancing, F/M, Gen, Holding Hands, Music, Mutual Pining, Paparazzi, Tattoos
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-23
Updated: 2018-11-23
Packaged: 2019-08-28 05:06:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,282
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16717097
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/genericghouligan/pseuds/genericghouligan
Summary: Melba and Steven are friends and band mates, but they're close to something else.





	what you had and what you lost

**Author's Note:**

> Title from "Dreams" by Fleetwood Mac, though I admit part of this is a reference to my ultimate nostalgic guilty pleasure song, James Blunt's "1973".
> 
> If I got any particulars of the music wrong, well, it has been some time since my piano and lessons and we never covered rock music. Let me know if you spot anything!

"No, no, no, do an arpeggio there," Melba insists.

"Descending?"

"Ascending!"

"You have finally lost it," Steven tells her, "you've pickled your brain, Dill."

"Your puns are so weak," she says.

"That was solid."

"It was forced and I'm frankly embarrassed for you."

"You're saying it was jarring?"

Melba groans and falls back on the bed, throwing her arm over her eyes. "Shut up and play the chord, Steven."

He plucks the notes out in order, and she taps the bedspread as she pictures the beats.

"Okay, do it again," she orders, rolling over to grab the nearest things she can find - chop sticks, they'll have to do - and bracing herself on her elbows. "Gene's bit goes -"

She hums the piano harmony, and when Steven picks up the descending arpeggio instead of the chord line progression he'd originally mapped out, she adds in a rough version of the drumline, tapped out on the edge of the bedside table.

"Okay," Steven says, "I'm kind of seeing it - one more time."

And she starts the rhythm up again, humming low, and Steven sings some nonsense syllables low under his breath and plays the progression exactly right and she doesn't stop at the bit they're reworking because the song is finally flowing, and by unspoken agreement he does the same, moving into the next part and she's just thinking, with her drums this might actually be perfect when she hits a little too hard and the chopstick splinters.

There's a discordant note as Steven's hands slip off the frets, and they both stare for a second at the broken chopsticks before Melba starts to laugh and Steven does too.

"Just don't do that to your sticks or -"

"Don't you say it," she yells.

" - or we'll really be in a pickle."

They're still laughing, Melba flipping Steven off even while she giggles, Steven cackling at his own stupid joke, when Gene comes back.

* * *

 

High on adrenaline after the show Steven draws her into the crowd dancing to the next band playing. They're just doing covers, but it's not terrible, and they're still riding that post-show high.

"She's back in town again," the lead singer croons. "I'll take her back again..."

It's too slow, too soft, but they can't not dance, and they sway with the crowds, their feet following a rhythm only Melba seems to know, and he lets her lead him through the steps until the song shifts to a Johnny Nash cover and Melba sighs.

"I need something with a beat," she says. "Let's get out of here."

"Saw a dive across the way," he suggests.

And she leads the way out into the street outside and the streetlights reflect off the rain on the pavement and illuminates her flushed face and it stops him dead.

"Come on," she says.

Across the street the neon lights for Simona's glow dimly and he can hear the thudding of something definitely more rock than roll.

He follows.

****

* * *

"I don't need you to hold my hand," Melba says.

"Of course not," Steven says. "I'm just quality control. You can't really see what he's doing when you're lying there."

She looks down at the design again, crossed drum sticks with a lightning bolt.

"It's gonna be awesome," he says.

The tattoo artist comes back into the room, pulling on his gloves. "All right," he says. "We'll get started. Your boyfriend can pull up that stool, if you want."

"Oh, we're not dating," Steven says, at the same time that Melba says, "He's not my boyfriend."

"Ah," the artist says, lookin between them. "My mistake."

But Steven pulls up a chair.

And when he starts needling over her ribs she grabs Steven's hand and squeezes, and he doesn't make a joke, just gently squeezes back.

"It's looking good," he says, even though he can't really see much of it yet.

"It's gonna be awesome," she says, through gritted teeth.

His thumb makes circles on the back of her hand.

* * *

 

The new record doesn't just sell. It sells out. They go from just their agent, Mr. B, to an entire team of publicists and burn through three band managers who can't compete with Gene's natural lean towards leadership, and it's that natural leadership that has Steven, in a suit, trying to get a bow tie to stay straight.

Melba doesn't make a habit of stroking Steven's ego but he seems genuinely uncomfortable in the monkey suit.

"You look good," she says.

He looks up at her. He looks stressed as all hell. Not good at all.

She reaches out and pushes the jacket off his shoulders and his eyes go wide for a moment, but she takes the jacket and steps back and, "Get your leather jacket," she tells him. "Looks better on you."

She undoes the bow tie too and leaves it looped around his neck. "It looks good like this," she tells him. "Trust me."

It looks... Ever so slightly disheveled, with the five o'clock shadow and the well-trimmed mustache and the nice suit but with his battered brown leather jacket and his bow tie undone. He also looks like Steven, and not some weird cookie cutter James Bond.

She takes his hand in the dark of the limo and doesn't let go.

The cameras flash when they step out, but it's okay. Everyone is looking at Gene and his red suitand his round sunglasses and his charming smile.

* * *

 

The world doesn't even seem to notice that they're hurtling towards something, even though the paparazzi don't leave them alone. They're critically acclaimed, topping the charts and boosting episode ratings on late night shows and selling out venues. Every camera in the world is pointed at them and Steven feels like no one sees them at all. He's alone with this sense of inevitability, like a meteor hurtling towards Earth.

"What are we doing?" He asks, backstage, where the chaos around them makes it feel like it's just the two of them.

"Are you having a stroke or an existential crisis?" Melba asks.

He doesn't know how to explain what he's saying. Mostly because in hindsight it seems ridiculous to suddenly want to discuss what's happening between them, here, right now.

Instead he shrugs. "Bit of both?"

"Show first," she says. "Then tPA and a drink."

"Oh, is that the standard treatment for existential crises, now?"

"It was when we were in nursing school," she says.

They would never have dreamt then that they'd be here in just ten years.

He looks down. "Ready to go?"

She takes his hand. "I'm always ready," she says.

They're hurtling towards something and he doesn't know if he's ready for it.

* * *

 

They fall asleep together on the couch while Gene plays something soft and melodic he's working on.

It's not deliberate. They're well beyond sharing doubles at roadside motels. This hotel room has four bedrooms and a hot tub, not to mention the full size grand piano Gene is playing, but they were sitting on the couch talking about the scribblings of lyrics and sheet music and then she'd been leaning into him and then they'd been tangled up with him, pressed close to fit on the couch while the music lulled them to sleep.

Steven falls asleep first and she lies there with her head on his chest, watching his eyes flicker in their lids as he dreams of something. She hopes it's her.

His heart beats in 3/4 rhythm, ba-dum-rest, and as his chest rises and falls with his breath she thinks of floating in the hotel pool, the faint bobbing of the water.

She laces their fingers together and closes her eyes.

Gene moves to a major third.

**Author's Note:**

> More to follow.


End file.
